


Toshiko's Long Night

by AliciaJasmine



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Aliens, Gen, Post-Season/Series 01, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-09-26 19:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9917798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliciaJasmine/pseuds/AliciaJasmine
Summary: Jack sends Toshiko to an abandoned warehouse, but it turns out that warehouse might not be abandoned after all.I'm really sorry if you've been waiting for the next chapter but I've decided that this isn't going to be finished. It's been too long and I'm no longer interested in continuing this. If you want to continue this yourself, then feel free to write a sequel or continuation if you want. Make sure to credit me if you do, though.





	1. The Warehouse

**Author's Note:**

> I finally decided to upload this to Archive of Our Own. This story takes place some time after Sleeper, and before Reset. Any feedback/support would be greatly appreciated, since this is my first Torchwood fanfiction.

Toshiko Sato sighed and put down her empty coffee cup. On her desk in front of her, was a small, remote-shaped, object. Tosh was certain it had to be a piece of alien technology, but she still hadn't found out what it was supposed to do. There were no buttons on it. Just a smooth, gold-coloured surface.

"Have you figured out what that thing is?" Tosh was slightly startled to hear Owen's voice come from behind her.

"No. I tried doing a full scan on it earlier, but..." Tosh held up the device.

"Well, I'm going to grab a couple drinks and then head home." Owen put on his jacket and picked up his bag.

"Maybe we could-" Toshiko started.

"Tosh!" Jack walked down to Toshiko's desk, cutting off her sentence.

"See you later, Tosh!" Owen said once the cog-wheel vault door rolled open. "And you, too, Jack," he added as he exited the Hub. The cog-wheel door closed behind him.

Toshiko felt disappointed. She wanted to ask Owen if she could come along, but it looked like she was going to stay at the Hub after all. Besides, Jack clearly wanted to talk to her about something, so she turned around to face him. "Can I help you with something?"

"Have you made any progress with that thing?" He leaned against her desk.

"No, I did a full scan, but there were no results. I think I'm going to stay here for another couple hours," Toshiko replied. Since she couldn't go to the pub with Owen, she thought that she might as well stay up late at the Hub.

Jack looked like he was deep in thought for a moment, then he said, "Earlier, I was reading about this abandoned warehouse. I detected some unusual rift activity there, and some people have gone missing in the area. I was going to go myself, but I have some phone calls I have to make. So, could you go check it out?"

"Am I going by myself?" Toshiko stood up. She decided that the alien artifact would have to wait until tomorrow.

"Ianto has to work on some stuff, Gwen and Owen have already left, and I have to make phone calls to a bunch of people, so you'll have to go on your own. Is that okay, Tosh?" Jack answered. He looked at the gold-coloured artifact, sitting on Toshiko's desk.

"No problem. Can I take this back to my flat?" Toshiko picked it up. "I think I'm going to need a lot of time with this. Once I'm done checking out that warehouse, of course." She smiled.

"Okay. See you when you get back. Contact me using the comms if something goes wrong," Jack walked back towards his office.

Toshiko put the artifact in her purse, and made sure she had a good supply of bullets for her gun. There was a good chance that there might be nothing at the warehouse, but you can never be too careful. After she put on her jacket and attached the comms device to her ear, she picked up her purse and left through the cog-wheel door. As she was leaving through the main entrance, she passed Ianto, who was sitting at the desk, drinking coffee.

"Going home?" He asked, putting down his cup.

"Jack asked me to go check out an abandoned warehouse. He picked up some unusual rift activity there," Toshiko answered.

"Did you want to take the SUV?" He asked.

"No, I'll just use my own car. I'm planning on heading home afterwards," Toshiko smiled and waved at him, as she walked out the door. "See you later, Ianto."  
  
It took about twenty minutes to drive there. Driving onto the street, Toshiko noticed how dark this area was. If it weren't for the street lights, this street would have been pitch black. She spotted the warehouse, and turned onto the driveway. After parking fifteen feet away from the warehouse, she got out of the car and turned on her flashlight.   
  
The warehouse was huge. This place definitely hadn't been cleaned in a long time. The exterior was filthy, covered with graffiti, and the windows were broken. Toshiko wondered if the inside would look any better.  
  
Toshiko decided to leave her purse inside her car. She thought that she wouldn't need anything besides her mobile phone, car keys, flashlight, and gun. She approached the large warehouse doors and realized that they were locked with a giant metal padlock. Where on earth was she supposed to get the keys? Toshiko glanced around to see if there was anyone around. Once she was sure that no one was watching her, she went back to her car. A few minutes later, she had successfully used a lock pick to unlock the warehouse doors.   
  
Toshiko hesitated before opening one of the doors a little bit. She peered inside the dark and smelly place. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she stepped inside the warehouse, closing the door behind her. Using her flashlight, she glanced around the place, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The place was completely empty. No shelves or boxes. Nothing was still stored here.  
  
Toshiko knew that something had to be wrong. There was a nasty smell in the building, but she couldn't see the source of it. There was also the fact that the interior was very clean. She expected cobwebs, dust, dirt, anything, but there were none. " _Someone's been here recently,"_ She thought.  
  
She began walking around the place, searching for the source of that awful smell. After walking around for a while, she began to feel as if there was another presence in the building, but she couldn't see anyone. She decided to go back to the Hub and pick up some equipment, so she could run a scan for anything out of the ordinary, but as soon as she started walking towards the door to leave the warehouse, she felt something hit her leg.  
  
Toshiko immediately fell to the floor from the intense pain in her leg. When she looked at her leg, she realized that someone or something had shot her with a dart. She pulled out her gun and looked around, unable to get up because of the pain. She couldn't see where this dart had come from. The room still appeared to be empty.  
  
Then she heard footsteps.  
  
They were getting closer and closer, but Toshiko couldn't see anyone. She gripped her weapon tightly.  
  
Then more footsteps.  
  
_"There's more than one of them,"_ Toshiko thought,  _"What am I going to do?"_ Toshiko looked in the direction that the footsteps seemed to be coming from.  
  
Then she heard a grating voice come from behind her, "You should not be here."  
  
Toshiko quickly turned her head towards the voice and then held back a gasp.  
  
"You made a mistake coming here, Toshiko Sato."


	2. The Arthrads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toshiko is captured by creature unlike anything she's ever seen before.

The creature she saw had two arms like a human, two legs like a human, and was wearing a black suit, but the rest of it was definitely not human. The shape of its head was similar to a horse's head. It had yellow, cat-like eyes, and there were six sharp claws on each hand. The creature was green with blue stripes on its face. Toshiko had seen plenty of aliens over the past few years, but none of them were as bizarre as this one.

"What are you?" Toshiko stared at the creature.

"We are Arthrads," The creature said in that same grating voice. Toshiko felt like she was going to get a headache from listening to it. She then heard footsteps right behind her. Turning around, she saw two more of these creatures. They were also wearing black suits.

"How do you know my name?" Toshiko asked, turning back towards the creature that answered her before.

"We actually know quite a lot about you and those colleagues of yours," the Arthrad replied, "We had a feeling one of you would turn up eventually. I was personally hoping it would be that man with the big military coat."

"What have you done to me?" Toshiko pointed the gun at the Arthrad's chest, but it was hard to sound threatening when she was lying on the ground, clearly in pain.

"Oh yes, the dart. It causes intense pain in whichever limb it hits," the Arthrad explained. "We had to stop you from leaving."

Toshiko attempted to pull the dart out of her leg, when the Arthrad shot her with another dart. This time it hit her right hand, which was still holding her gun. The pain caused her to drop the gun. _"No!"_ Toshiko thought.

"This was your warning. Don't try to pull those darts out."The Arthrad crouched down and picked up Toshiko's gun. "That's better."

Toshiko tried to use the comms to call Jack. "Jack! Jack?" Toshiko called, but there was no response. She realized that these Arthrads probably blocked the signal. _"Of course they did."_

"What do you want?" Toshiko asked. Toshiko tried to think of a way out of this, but there didn't seem to be any possibility of getting out.

"A place to hide, and information," the Arthrad responded. "We were on the run, and then the three of us found this planet."

"What information?" Toshiko asked.

"About nuclear weapons," the Arthrad smiled. "Our planet may have ships for travelling in space, but we don't have weapons as powerful as yours."

"What do you need weapons for?" Toshiko knew it couldn't be good.

"War. There have been no big wars on our planet in ages, but our government can't stay the same. People are unhappy with it. If we go to war with them, they'll have to change." The Arthrad said. Toshiko understood why they wanted to do it, but she knew it wasn't right.

"You're going to kill your own people?" Toshiko asked. "Are you sure that's going to work?"

"Our government promised never-ending peace! If we start a war, people will get angry at the government for not keeping its promise." One of the other Arthrads said. "Now you're going to tell us where we can find the instructions on how to build these nuclear weapons."

"I don't know where the blueprints are!" Toshiko said. She tried to stand up, but the pain was still too much.

"Then you'll tell us where we can find nuclear weapons." The third Arthrad replied.

"I don't know where you can find some." Toshiko lied. She remembered the events from several months earlier, involving aliens Jack called Cell 114. Jack didn't know much about them. They infiltrated planets, gathering enough information until they were ready to take over. They disguised themselves as humans, even giving themselves fake memories. One that was activated, tried to access nuclear warheads, located in a mine shaft, underground in the middle of nowhere.

"Don't think you can just lie to us. If you're lying, tell us the truth now!" the first Arthrad raised their voice, stepping closer to Toshiko. "Tie her up!" the Arthrad said to the other two Arthrads. The second and third Arthrads pulled out the darts in her hand and leg. As soon as the darts were pulled out of her, the intense pain was gone.

 They used a long piece of rope to tie her up. A few minutes later, she was completely covered in rope, except for her feet, neck, and head. The pain was gone, but now she couldn't move.

"You won't get anything from me. I'd rather die than tell you!" Toshiko glared at the Arthrad.

"Hmm? Do you fancy becoming a slug?" The Arthrad said. "We do have the equipment to do so. Trust me, it's very painful."

Then Toshiko heard footsteps. "What are you doing?!" A man's voice cried. Then she saw a young man approach the first Arthrad.

"We are trying to get information!" the Arthrad yelled at the young man. He had curly, blonde hair, and blue eyes. He was wearing a dirty, grey sweater, and blue jeans.

"I told you not to go outside. What if someone else saw you?" The young man replied.

 _"These aliens seems to know him, but how? He looks human to me."_ Toshiko thought.

"Then we would kill them. Just like we killed those other people who wandered near this warehouse." The Arthrad explained, turning to look at Toshiko. "Plus, we didn't go outside. She came to us."

"But...The door was locked!" The young man said, with a confused expression on his face.

"She must have used a lock pick." The second Arthrad responded.

The young man walked towards Toshiko, "Who are you?"

"Toshiko Sato," She said. She noticed how terrified this man looked. _"Was he forced into some kind of deal with them?"_

"She's from Torchwood." The third Arthrad added.

The young man took a step back from Toshiko. "Tor...Torch...Torchwood?"

"It's surprising that they only sent one of them. I was expecting all five of them to show up with their guns out." The first Arthrad said, circling Toshiko.

"They found us? They found out that there are aliens here?" The young man didn't seem to have heard what the first Arthrad just said.

The second Arthrad said, "Well? Toshiko, did you expect to find people that are not from this world when you came here?"

Toshiko didn't reply. "Well?" The first Arthrad said.

"No..." Toshiko finally replied. She glanced at the young man. _"If he's been forced into this, I have to try and help him if I can."_ Toshiko thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love any feedback/support. I don't know when I'll have the next chapter up, but I hope I'll be able to start writing it soon.


	3. Some Help?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toshiko doesn't see a way out of this, but she hasn't lost all hope.

Toshiko certainly was in a tight spot.

 

She had to figure out a way out of this. With the comms blocked, she was on her own. Tosh knew she would get out of this. After all, she had always managed to get out of these kinds of situations.

 

“What do we do?” The second Arthrad asked the first. “She won’t tell us where to find weapons.”

 

“Search her car,” The first Arthrad said to the third Arthrad. “Maybe she has something we can use.”

 

The third Arthrad nodded and left the warehouse. Toshiko wondered if they would find the alien artifact.

 

“So, are you going to turn me into a slug now? I’m not going to tell you where any weapons are,” Toshiko said, glaring at the first and second Arthrads.

 

“I was actually joking about the whole “turning you into a slug” thing. We can’t actually do that,” The first Arthrad said.

 

“That would be weird if we could,” the second Arthrad said.

 

After a few moments, the first Arthrad began to tap his foot impatiently. “What is taking Frose so long?”

 

Just after voicing his impatience, the third Arthrad, Frose, walked in. _“I was starting to wonder if they even have names, “_ Toshiko thought.

 

“I found this,” Frose was holding the alien artifact Toshiko had been studying earlier. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to bring it with her after all.

 

“Hmmm, this will definitely make it easier to get the information out of her,” The first Arthrad said. Toshiko was pretty sure he was smiling.

 

“Tosh?”

 

Toshiko heard a voice. It was coming from the comms. _“What?”_   She thought. Toshiko had been sure that the comms were blocked, but there was Ianto’s voice. Unfortunately, Toshiko couldn’t answer him, since she was tied up.

 

She felt a surge of hope, though. Maybe Ianto would start to get worried and come to the warehouse? It was too much to hope for, but it was something.

 

“Tosh? Are you there?” Ianto said. His voice was starting to sound concerned.

 

Toshiko tried to hold back a sigh of relief but she couldn’t help it. 

 

“What is it?” the first Arthrad asked, throwing Toshiko a puzzled look.

 

“Nothing,” Toshiko answered, as innocently as she could. Luckily, the artifact was distracting them.

 

“It’s hard to believe this device is still intact,” the second Arthrad muttered. The other two Arthrads voiced their agreement.

 

“What is it?” Toshiko asked. Ianto’s voice was still in her ear, calling her name.

 

“This,” The first Arthrad said, “is the Animaio.”

 

“What does it do?” Toshiko said. If they were thinking of using it to get information out of her, then it couldn’t be good.

 

“Yeah, what does it do?” The young man asked.

 

"We'll have to go back to the spaceship to get this thing working, but once we do... We won't need this woman to tell us where the weapons are," The third Arthrad said.

 

"We'll know."

 

**************************

 

Back at the Hub, things were pretty quiet except for Ianto repeating Toshiko’s name, waiting for her to answer. He decided to try and call her phone instead. He picked up his own mobile phone and began to dial Toshiko’s number.

 

Jack left his office to see what Ianto was doing. He had finished his phone calls, but he didn't feel like doing paperwork at the moment.

 

“No answer,” Ianto muttered to himself, dialing her number again.

 

“What’s going on?” Jack asked.

 

“It’s Tosh. She’s not answering her comms or her mobile. She would’ve contacted us while leaving the warehouse,” Ianto waited for Toshiko to pick up her phone but she didn’t.

 

“You think she's in trouble? It's an abandoned warehouse,” Jack replied, confident that the warehouse was empty.

 

“What if it isn’t, Jack?” Ianto glanced at him while dialing Toshiko's number again.

 

"You really think that there's something going on?" Jack asked.

 

"Positive." Ianto still wasn't getting an answer trying to call Tosh.

 

“Should we head over and see what's up?” Jack turned to go grab his coat.

 

“The both of us?” Ianto asked, “What about that paperwork I left on your desk?”

 

“It's not urgent, is it?” Jack said, starting to walk towards his office to grab his coat.

 

“Actually it is,” Ianto answered, following him. "I know that one of those papers has been sitting on your desk for an entire week now."

 

“It can wait a little longer,” Jack grinned. Ianto rolled his eyes.

 

On this night, Jack was prepared for a lot of situations, but running into the Arthrads again was not one of them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry this took so long! Anyways, I've changed this into a series because after I finish this one, I want to try and write more stories about Torchwood encountering this Arthrad race I've invented. Let me know if you spot any errors because I'm tired and I might have missed something.
> 
> Edit: I'm really sorry if you've been waiting for the next chapter but I've decided that this isn't going to be finished. It's been too long and I'm no longer interested in continuing this. If you want to continue this yourself, then feel free to write a sequel or continuation if you want. Make sure to credit me if you do, though.


End file.
